Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night claimed the Southwest Airlines chaos at the weekend was caused by pilots striking in protest against compulsory COVID-19 vaccines.
The airline saw almost 2,000 flights cancelled, accounting for 23 per cent of their routes. Southwest blamed the weather, but was the only airline to face problems on such a scale - the second worst airline this weekend, American, saw two per cent of its flights cancelled.
The airline said that they had 'numerous cancellations, primarily created by weather and other external constraints, which left aircraft and Crews out of pre-planned positions to operate our schedule on Saturday.'
They added: 'Unfortunately, the out-of-place aircraft and continued strain on our Crew resources created additional cancelations across our point-to-point network that cascaded throughout the weekend and into Monday.'
And they denied that the problems were created by a strike against the vaccine.
'As a note, the operational challenges were not a result of Southwest Employee demonstrations,' they said.
Carlson on Monday night insisted the airline was lying.
Tucker Carlson on Monday night accused Southwest Airlines and their pilots' union of lying, after they both said that there was no strike of staff. Carlson said that airline employees walked off the job in protest at a vaccine mandate
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Southwest Airlines cancelled almost 2,000 flights over the weekend. The airline initially said it was due to air traffic control issues, then blamed the weather in Florida for causing a knock-on effect. The airline denied that employees protesting against a COVID mandate had anything to do with the problem
Southwest issued a 'tremendous apology' to its passengers on Monday evening
Passengers are seen at Fort Lauderdale airport lining up to speak to assistants on Monday
'All of that is a lie, it's not what happened,' he said.
'We've spoken to several people with direct knowledge of what actually did happen.
'We can tell you the shutdown of Southwest Airlines over the weekend was a direct consequence, it was a reaction to, Joe Biden's vaccine mandates.'
Biden in September ordered that all companies with more than 100 employees bring in a vaccination mandate.
He has argued it is the only way to bring the pandemic under control, with 700,000 Americans dead from COVID and more than 2,000 people still dying every day from the virus.
The ruling has proved extremely controversial, with Republican politicians describing it as an attack on personal freedoms.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, on Monday banned companies based in his state from enforcing a vaccination mandate.
Fort Worth-based American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, last week told its 100,000 U.S.-based employees they must submit proof of full vaccination no later than November 24 - or be fired.
United Airlines imposed a vaccine mandate on its 60,000 employees, around 9,000 of whom are based in Texas.
Carlson praised the supposed strikers for standing up for their beliefs.
Carlson told his viewers: ''We can tell you the shutdown of Southwest Airlines over the weekend was a direct consequence, it was a reaction to, Joe Biden's vaccine mandates.' His claim was denied by the airline and the union
A passenger at Orlando International Airport shared a picture of four children sleeping on the floor due to flight cancellations
A passenger and his child were left sleeping on the floor after being stranded in Las Vegas
Carlson said that one pilot told him that the employees were stressed by the vaccine order
'So this weekend, in protest, large number of Southwest pilots called out sick and they effectively shut down their airline,' he told his viewers.
'For many of them, you should
